NCIPH

1. Practice patient-centered and relationship-based care.
• Recognize the value of relationship-centered care as a tool to facilitate healing.
• Demonstrate respect and understanding for patients' interpretations of health, disease, and illness that are based upon their cultural beliefs and practices.
• Demonstrate the ability to reflect on elements of patient encounters, including personal bias and belief, to facilitate understanding of relationship-centered care.
2. Obtain a comprehensive health history which includes mind-body-spirit, nutrition, and the use of conventional, complementary and integrative therapies and disciplines.
• Demonstrate patient-centered history taking, using a biopsychosocial approach that includes an accurate nutritional history, spiritual history, and inquiry of conventional and complementary treatments.
3. Collaborate with individuals and families to develop a personalized plan of care to promote health and well-being which incorporates integrative approaches including lifestyle counseling and the use of mind-body strategies.
• Collaborate with patients in developing and carrying out a health screening and management plan for disease prevention and treatment using conventional and complementary therapies when indicated.
4. Demonstrate skills in utilizing the evidence as it pertains to integrative healthcare.
• Understand the evidence base for the relationships between health and disease and the following factors: emotion, stress, nutrition, physical activity, social support, spirituality, sleep, and environment.
• Evaluate the strengths and limitations of evidence-based medicine (EBM) as it applies to conventional and complementary approaches and its translation into patient care.
• Use EBM resources, including those related to CAM, at the point of care.
• Identify reputable print and/or online resources on conventional and complementary.
5. Demonstrate knowledge about the major conventional, complementary and integrative health professions.
• Understand national and state standards related to training, licensing, credentialing, and reimbursement of community CAM practitioners.
• Demonstrate understanding of common complementary medicine therapies, including their history, theory, proposed mechanisms, safety/efficacy profile, contraindications, prevalence, and patterns of use.
6. Facilitate behavior change in individuals, families and communities.
• Facilitate health behavior changes in patients, using techniques such as motivational interviewing or appreciative inquiry.
7. Work effectively as a member of an interprofessional team.
• Demonstrate respect for peers, staff, consultants, and CAM practitioners who share in the care of patients.
• Collaborate with community CAM practitioners and other healthcare specialists in the care of patients, while understanding legal implications and appropriate documentation issues.
8. Engage in personal behaviors and self-care practices that promote optimal health and wellbeing.
• Understand importance of self-care practices to improve personal health, maintain work-life equilibrium, and serve as a role model for patients, staff, and colleagues.
9. Incorporate integrative healthcare into community settings and into the healthcare system at large.
• Understand different reimbursement systems and their impact on patient access to both.
• Identify strategies for facilitating access to Integrative Medicine services for their patients, including low-income populations.
• Understand the principles of designing a healthcare setting that reflects a healing environment.
10. Incorporate ethical standards of practice into all interactions with individuals, organizations and communities.
• Demonstrate an understanding of ethical principles regarding decisions and treatment that have potential ethical implications including patient autonomy.
• Act as an effective patient advocate with other members of the health care team
• Advocate for equal access to all types of therapeutic options regardless of socioeconomic status.
• Recognize the importance of informed consent and patient awareness of available conventional treatment options when patients are making unconventional choices regarding their health care.
• Demonstrate personal ethical standards: understand and avoid potential ethical conflicts with the pharmaceutical industries, third-party payers, and other health industry providers, as well as in personal conduct with patients, staff, and colleagues.
• Demonstrate awareness of limitations in expertise, operate within the jurisdictional scope of practice, and refer care when appropriate.

Competency Development

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